The present invention relates in general to bearing structures, and more particularly to a bearing and seal assembly for rotatably mounting and supporting an open end of a clothes dryer drum.
A typical clothes dryer of the domestic type includes a clothes containing drum rotatable on a horizontal axis, the drum being contained within a box-like cabinet with a door permitting user access to the drum via its open front end. Such clothes dryer configurations are well known in the art.
While roller type supports beneath the drum can be used to rotatably support it, it is also known to use a ring-like bearing and seal assembly between the open front end of the drum and a circular support flange provided by a front cabinet panel with an access opening that is normally closed by the door.
With reference to U.S. Pat. No. 3,399,464, which is incorporated herein by reference, a ring-like bearing and seal assembly for rotatably supporting the front end of a dryer drum includes a pair of plastic bearing pads 12 that are fixed to an upper portion of a circular support flange 13 extending inwardly from the front panel of the dryer cabinet, the circular flange surrounding the access opening through the front panel. The front end of the drum provides a circular lip 15 that rides on and bears against the two noted bearing pads, the circular support flange being coaxially nested within the open front end of the drum. The annular space between the drum lip and the support flange that is not occupied by the pair of bearing pads is filled with lengths of felt material 15a constituting a seal for minimizing air leakage between the lip and the flange.
While such a bearing and seal assembly may adequately provide rotatable support for the front end of the dryer drum, undesirable noise transmission to the dryer cabinet can occur via the bearing pads due to a rotating non-concentric dryer drum as can occur because of drum manufacturing tolerances. Also, the plastic material, such as nylon or polytetrafluoroethylene, used to form the bearing pads is relatively expensive.
Accordingly, it is the primary aim of the present invention to provide a bearing and seal assembly which overcomes each of the aforementioned shortcomings without offsetting disadvantages.